SAW LONDON BURN

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 552, 3 January 1929, Page 9

SAW LONDON BURN

GREAT FIRE OF 1666 RE-ENACTED FASCINATING MODELS 1 stepped back into the past today, and saw London burn —the red-cabled, timbered London of narrow winding streets; the London that Pepys knew and described so vividly in his famous diary. The evening sun glinted on the river, touching with gold the four turrets of the Tower, and burnishing with ominous red the square tower of Old St. Faul’s. Then it grew dark. The moon rose, and presently, in the east, a flicker of dame threw into sudden relief the serried dwelling houses of Pudding Lane (.writes Joan Littlefield in the Melbourne “Herald”). Soon the whole street was on tire, and the roaring, tearing, crackling, terror rushed ever nearer and nearer to the grey security of Old St. Paul's The way was easy, the wooden buildings crumbled one by one, and before the fire could be checked that square tower had fallen for ever into the street below r . ... The flames flickered and died down, and the pleasant white-haired gentleman at my side switched on the electric light. I realised with a start that this was the twentieth century, and that I was standing in the upper room of an office in the city. The man at my side. Mr. John F>. Thorp, was the worker of the miracle. His real iob is to make architects* models, but his hobby is to reconstruct. old London for the present ' generation. History from Models “It is the finest wav of learning history at a glance,” he said. “With this model, and a good lecturer, for instance, one can find out more about the Great Fire of 1666 in a quarter of of an hour than it is possible to learn from a year's study of the books of the period.” Mr. Thorp then showed me a large model of Old London Bridge, complete in every detail from the diamondpaned windows of the quaint Elizabethan houses that used to flank the bridge to the large boat-shaped piles on which it stood. This model, one of the most elaborate ever made (every room in every house can be illuminated), took about 6.000 hours to build. Mr. Thorp, who hopes to hold an exhibition of his models in London next year, told me that this hobby of his means a great deal of research work. He recently discovered in Fishmongers’ Hall some old prints of the Lord Mayor's Show of 1616. From these he is reconstructing the pageant in miniature as it passed through Cheapside. The procession will be complete in every detail, and will take five minutes to pass a given spot. Mr. Thorp first draws plans of tho old buildings he is going to reconstruct, and then builds up his models from these. Besides models, Mr Thorp has constructed many interesting things that throw sidelights, both grave and gay, on the customs of the past. He has in his workshop, for instance, a finger pillory, which is an exact copy of those used 200 years ago for imprisoning wilful servants when they quarrelled with each other, or refused to work. Ten minutes of this punishment was generally enough to make the girls beg to be allow'ed to return • to their pots and pans! Instruments of Torture There is also a full-sized replica of Guy Fawkes’s lantern, the original of which is in the Ashmelean Museum at Oxford; a real rack, on which men and women were tortured; and a sinister instrument, something like a small pair of tongs, used for putting out people’s eyes. Besides reconstructing the past, Mr. Thorp anticipates the future, and in his workshop are to be found models —some of them closely guarded from prying eyes—of many of the new buildings which are to be erected in London during the next few years. Aifong others are models of the proposed new gallery for the Elgiu Marbles, and of the new' wing that has been offered to the) National Gallery through the generosity of Sir Joseph Duveen, the great British art patron. One of the giost remarkable presentday models on view is a reproduction in miniature of the great stage of the London Coliseum —one of the most celebrated stages in the world—which, when it is finished, will be perfect in every detail, from revolving stage to “limes.” This is being built for Sir Osw'ald Stoll, the proprie or of the Coliseum, so that he may try out new effects before introducing them in his theatre. Mr. Thorp also reconstructs street accidents for the edification of puzzled tries. The scene of the accident is built up in exact replica, even to the smallest bush, and tiny models of the vehicles concerned are used to demonstrate how the collision occurred.